3 Russian Stocks Hiding Out With Snowden

Investors might fear Russia, but it’s home to a few high-fliers

Yandex

YTD Return: +46%

Google (GOOG) might be the search engine king of much of the world, but Yandex (YNDX) wears the crown in Russia. Even though Google has stolen away some market share, Yandex still has a firm grasp at more than 60% of users.

And that’s just in its homeland. The Russian giant also has been busy expanding into neighboring markets like Turkey and Ukraine, where Internet use is far from saturated. Toss in a recently debuted browser, app store and more, and this is a company on the rise.

Speaking of rising, in its most recent quarter, Yandex saw revenue and earnings improve 37% and 35%, respectively, and YNDX shares have soared 46% since Jan. 1.

Another promising sign: The state-owned company gets the bulk of its revenues from text-based advertising, meaning Yandex is front-running the move to mobile that lots of companies are trying to keep up with. Plus, Yandex just passed Microsoft‘s (MSFT) Bing to become the world’s fourth most popular search engine.

Making that growth even more appealing is the stock’s resilience. Although it slid right after its first-day pop in 2011, YNDX has gained back momentum lately. Its $31 price tag is still off 9% from Yandex’s first day of trading, but still around 25% higher than its $25 offering price. YNDX also got shaken up by the Navalny verdict, but it has already regained those losses and then some.

All in all, Internet use isn’t going anywhere, and Yandex is perfectly poised to remain the Google of Russia.